-- Marge Piercy

In case you missed it, Tuesday was National Zucchini Bread day. It was also the blog-o-versary of Faith Squared! Thank you to all of our readers, fans, followers, Project You writers, Advent Calendar contributors and, of course, Qrickets. :-) We are grateful for ALL of you, and for everything this year on the internet has taught us.

Here is F2’s Top Ten List of benchmark educational moments.

10. Never, ever, ever trust a website programmer who answers his business line, “Huh?” and sounds like a 12-year-old who has set up shop in his parents’ basement.

9. In our very first blog post a year ago, we mentioned that we had no idea what the letters S, E and O mean. We still don’t. But, we do know that if you Google Faith Squared, you get us. SEO, conquered.

8. We never expected we would need a degree in Animal Husbandry, but what with PicMonkey, Survey Monkey, and MailChimp on our team, we have found it truly takes a zoo to run a website.

7. Oh Pinterest, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways…6042 to be exact. You’ve never once let us down; you always know the right thing to say (or show, as it were), and there was only that one time when the rumor mill made it sound like we were going to jail simply for fraternizing with you. It was a risk we were willing to take. You’re beautiful, and we heart you.

6. Both iterations of the Faith Squared Advent Calendar have surprised us in different ways. The first time, that we could pull it off at all; the second, in the number of talented people who were so excited to be part of it with us. If the third time is indeed the charm, we can’t wait to be surprised.

5. We’ve tried to figure out how Facebook works. Really. We’ve tried.

4. We’ve learned that it is critical to actually visit our own website at least once a day…just to make sure it’s still there. Sometimes our site host is anything but hospitable.

3. Remember the 12-year-old website programmer in #10? Well, he wasn’t the only Chaos Lord to cross Faith Squared’s developmental path. Enter our cyber white knight, Rob Granholm, who not only made sense out of the chaos and made it work, but spared us the gory details of how, WTF, and why.

2. We’ve learned both in our writing and in our lives that it is more important than ever before to be true to oneself…to follow your heart no matter what.

1. And that brings us to number one…that God is at the heart of everything; He always has been, and He always will be. And we continue to learn, over and over, exactly what that means.